Ride Like The Wind
by LilianxJane
Summary: It's all started here, in this chaotic night, where the slayer meets his opposite. Dante, OC (Requested.)


**Do enjoy this one-shot**

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**Ride Like The Wind**

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As a child, he used to wake in the night and wish for the sun. The darkness worried him, his imagination supplied many beasts with fantastical jaws to lurk beyond the range of his vision. He would recall with vivid details that night his mother died and the long run away. Many nights he spent running in his sleep, running off into the distance, running across hills and through forests, running, running, running; and in the rain his tears were forever lost. Broadly set into the bed of another woman, he lived without a home, taken under the care of Nell Goldstein, the hard woman who allowed him entry. From the skeletons of his father's weapons, Luce & Ombra, came the pistols Ebony & Ivory, his primary guns.

The name Tony Redgrave itself came about easily, though not exceptionally creatively. The last name itself came from Dante's hometown, Redgrave City, a minor municipality within the state of New York.

The first name, Tony, came from nowhere in particular, merely a butch-sounding name he felt far enough away from his own to allay suspicions. He disliked hiding behind that name.

But now he embraced it.

The warm bronze sunlight was swallowed by the horizon. The bright sunny day engulfed in darkness. Beautiful darkness. Darkness where within his laughter lines illuminated and seemed to turn from creaks to craters, smiling at the heavens, shooting stars flittering past the moon. Celestial bodies filled the sky like pale corn into freshly turned ground. It was the promise of life in the bleak mundanities, a sense of warmth springing from the cold. It was an unappreciable thing to bring both humbleness and eternal space to the coziness of another's home, and he had no place on this earth, not till recently. No matter the years that passed, Dante saw each night sky as a fresh gift given anew. It was the moment anyone that knew him would see his eyes smile and his breathing deepen.

The phone rang disturbing his serenity. He rolled his eyes and immediately picked up.

"Sorry, not open for business yet." He didn't bother to wait for an answer from the caller

The door opened and he heard heavy footsteps coming his way. The man was pale white, ghostly almost as the chalk cliffs of Dover in a full moon.

Heterochromatic eyes stared upon him like a wolf seeking its prey. There was an air of obnoxious confidence that met him.

"Are you a customer?" Dante wondered, "Help yourself."

The scar all across the man's face was something to be beheld, a vicious reminder of wounds that still tore at his psyche. Such a man as him would not be trifled by the paltry pain of past transgressions. There was a grander purpose he desired before the end would come, and to this end, he stalked slowly through the room, ambling towards Dante's table wandering lonely as a cloud. Why did Dante always attract the weirdos? The dregs of society were a horrid things he sought not to mingle with, in fact if he saw crime of any kind, it was at once a thought of his to suppress it.

The man sauntered off to the left, Dante's right, and ran his two fingers along the dusty billiard table.

"Are you Dante?" His voice was deep and cold, practically mechanical, "The son of Sparda?"

For a moment Dante's blood ran cold, his true name shouldn't be known to anyone, not even Nell, and yet . . . he'd heard it, plain as day.

"Where'd you hear that?"

The stranger came to stand in front of his desk, mismatched eyes probing him, almost looking through his skin. Down towards his chest in fact, to the red jewel around his neck.

That was it . . . the missing piece which would open Hell's black gate.

"From your brother." Both of his hands he grabbed the desk, "Please, accept his invitation."

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**. . .**

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As she rose from a strangely heavy slumber, she first became aware of a chill in the air, the frozen hand of winter descending without a change of the season. She wasn't able to open her eyes first, and she smelled a putrid iron odor, mixed in with the smell of water stains. The ground was a bit lumpy against her back, as though she was sleeping under a bed of sand and rocks. Her eyes fluttered open, and she noticed that she was staring at a cloudy sky, there was an odd viridescence creeping through the clouds, which she assumed to be the moon.

Though her eyes were open, she couldn't think of why; her heart was pounding, mind empty. It was as if a hypodermic needle filled to the brim with adrenaline had been injected directly into her arteries. She strained into the black, the rate of her breath beginning to steady itself.

A gust of dry wind poured through the maze of the houses where windows had long since shattered in the weakness of their structures, and rotting boards, some broken, others hanging, attempted to cover the empty eyes of every abandoned residence. Doors hung on by few threads, the hinges nearly broken and groaning with pain at every sway. Weeds socialize across the cracking asphalt of every road, gathering and laughing at the lone pedestrian as they try to weave around the catching fingers with every step.

She could see blood trails beneath a number of cars, and what seems to be corpses strung up on a nearby fence.

"Where? How . . . why?" She didn't have the strength to even speak one full sentence.

Her hands trembled at her sides and she jammed her fist into her mouth to stifle the scream. She'd heard it coming; the soft susurration of footsteps, like a threatening whisper. It didn't seem to come from any direction, only echoing. It encapsulated her inside a cocoon of despair and hopelessness. Odds were high she wouldn't leave this street alive. Her feet were frozen into place, so she crouched into a crawl and dragged herself towards the opened dumpster nearby, gasping and choking.

Her eyes gazed around, wondering what kind of horrors awaited her here.

Every second felt like an eternity. Hiding capably, she felt to scream as soon as she saw the abominations that stalked the streets. Within her vision, she spotted red rags that clung to a decomposing humanoid figure, a body of blackened flesh and broken skin, soon noticing a large scythe clasped within its hands. And the face, it was a twisted joke on human nature's indelible tastes. The creature spoke some kind of a language she could not understand.

Through the shadows she saw the thing, a skull-faced catastrophe joined soon by brethren of a similar fashion.

"Dear god . . ." She cried to herself, silent and meek. To her luck, the creature cared not to know she was there.

Slowly, Elizabeth crawled through the dirt, moving around to the opposite side of the entities, her legs and arms threatening to buckle under her.

'Come on' she encouraged herself to move forward, however, evermore did sounds echo through the air. More footsteps joined the unholy gathering, croaking and rattling into her ears the sounds of death, and more silent tears streamed down her face. All of her being begged this to be a nightmare, a dream that would cease itself soon. Her foot stepped over a shard of glass, right on cue, all the seven hells turned about-face, hell bound to tear apart her soul.

Her eyes flared, and she watched them all move toward her slowly, the forces of darkness eyeless nightmares.

The light of the street lamps hit the metal of one of their scythes and reflected into her eyes, blinding her, and involuntarily, her legs pushed her up and started to move of their own accord. Elizabeth didn't even realize she was screaming, her throat was drying up. She didn't know where the hell she was going, and it didn't matter. Destroyed stores, a collapsed coffeeshop, the remains of a restaurant. From the corner of her eyes, she saw death's scythe almost cutting down upon her arm. The blade's edge nicked her flesh open and she gritted her teeth. Grabbing hold of a broken door, she pushed it forward and dashed through a crumbling building, the door swinging back shut to protect herself at least for the moment.

Within seconds the horde cut through it.

"No," She screamed, trying her hardest to run through the rubble, dozens of creatures lunging after the woman as much as they could.

This is it, this is where she will die, torn apart and devoured alive by monsters. Through the other side of the building, she emerged within an open square and fell to her knees.

Screams and wheezes drenched the back of her and she closed her eyes, ready for the pain.

Gunshots rang out, and a pair of doors blew off their hinges, filled with spite. Out stepped a man with silver hair, wielding black and silver pistols and a giant sword on his back. The face of a skeleton adorned the handle. Further shots he fired rendered the air still, the noise reverberating in the ears and ringing about for the entire street's empty joy. He stepped confidently, and the monsters all ceased their attacks on the woman. His frosty blue eyes affirmed so many things, rage, hostility, warmth, safety.

"I can't believe this . . . It's not even the first god damn day, and you goons totally wrecked my shop! I haven't even god-damned named it yet!" He yelled.

Clad in a crimson coat, he was all the things men usually weren't. The building behind him collapsed down upon himself and shrouded him within dust.

His blue eyes turned red and peered through the dust, enraged.

"I hope you have enough to cover all this!" He said, and without another word, he dove forward, gliding on his feet.

He slashed through two at a time, heaving heavy strokes brimming with anger for the loss of his new home. Cleaving his broadsword down, he split the skull of the red wannabe in half, then delivered a spite-filled kick that broke its sandy composure apart. More approached, and he fired off Ebony straight through one's skull before striking out with Rebellion a vicious flurry of stabs that tore apart the black cloaked figures, and he continued the bloodshed with blunt strokes of the blade. It was a routine at this point, dashing in and out so fast these dull nimrods couldn't hope to strike him as he backflipped over one of their heads and slashed through its shoulder, breaking the body apart. Smashing his boots down upon the one that stood behind it, he crushed its whining face to ash, then slashed left back and forth, severing both arms of the next buffoon.

Lashing out with a menacing kick, he took its head off clean, and swung it around into a roundhouse that knocked another vanguard off towards the windowsill of nearby shop. And he broke them apart with his gunslinging fury, drawing both pistols and launching shots in all directions as he stood still. Nothing could touch him, and not one fuck did he give. In time, they all returned to dust, steadily worn away as he pumped out shells with reckless abandon. With a final swing of the blade, he clashed steels with the scythe and a spark clang out between them. Doubling back, he repositioned Rebellion in a straight line vertically and raced forward, sword coated in scarlet hate. The blade pierced the vanguard's stomach and ripped through the soft body like tissue paper.

It broke apart into sand, and all that remained within the lot was the Devil man and the human woman that had wondered into his destroyed unit's parking.

"Oh that scratched an itch that needed scratchin'." He said with a smirk and rested Rebellion upon his shoulders lazily.

She had stopped her weeping and stared in awe of him.

"Who are you?" She couldn't help but to say.

He looked at her, "Hmm? Oh, you're still here. Name's Tony Redgrave."

She looked at him dumbfounded, though grateful.

"You should find a good place to hide." He spoke casually, "Unless you wanna die, cause now's a pretty good time to grant a death-wish."

"W-What in the hell were those things?" She stuttered.

"Those things were demons, I'm afraid." Said the man, "Ya don't wanna tangle with those things, they'll tear your throat out if you even look at 'em."

The man took out something from his pocket and tossed it toward her.

"Catch." He said.

Without hesitation, she opened her hand and caught a cold object, a water bottle?

"What's this?" She spoke at last.

"It's water." He said, a bit irritated, "It's that lil' thing you need to drink, or you'll die."

Elizabeth gave up instantly and just started drinking, the things she'd seen draining her of argument and sanity.

It was a bit too cold for her taste but it was exactly what she needed. Seemed her life just entered overload.

She coughed and spluttered, swallowing water the wrong way, and she cleared her throat swiftly, asking the man, "What's . . . going on here?"

Dante crossed his arms, "That's what I'd like to know. I'm just chillin' in my shop and then all of a sudden these demons pop up and destroy all my stuff. God damn it if that wasn't bad enough but then they went and tore down the building, which wasn't cheap, so now, I'm just pissed off as all hell. Speaking of which, what's a fragile little bunny like you doing out here in the middle of this mess?"

Fragile little bunny!? How rude.

"Did you just call me a bunny?" She mumbled slightly, a hint of anger evident in her voice.

Dante raised an eyebrow a bit surprised, "And what if I did? You're about as goodlookin' as any one of the playmates to be one." He challenged her.

A wide smirk broke across his face. Indeed, she was not unattractive, possessing long legs and a pretty face he couldn't help but go apeshit for.

She blushed, "Uh what? Um, okay, I just- I was just attacked by monsters, can you not flirt with me?"

"Hey, it's cool. I'm not gonna judge ya," he said, "I just know you got better than what you're giving me."

A rock hurtled at his face. He caught it thusly and stared at it perplexed. A barrage of more followed.

One by one he caught them in his hand. Her face was a mixture of anger-fear-and survival instincts.

Interesting.

"Easy there, feisty. There's no shame in showing some skin."

Elizabeth glared him in the eyes.

"Will you quit it?!" She shouted at him, "I don't want to hear your voice right now. What the hell were those things?"

"Oh, you're not too bright, are ya?"

A fist smacked him cross the jaw.

He looked back at her, mockingly hurt.

"Yeeeeeah, I'm gonna go ahead and tell ya not to do that again." He said, and with that he turned about face began to walk off.

She didn't know what else to do so Elizabeth started walking at her own pace behind him.

"What are you doing?" He looked back at her, stopping.

"I'm . . . there's nowhere else to go." She replied, frustrated and still scared.

"No, there's plenty of other directions to go. For instance," he pointed off behind her, "That way."

This served to make her angry, "Look, I don't know who you are, but you just killed every single one of those things. The safest place is near you."

He scoffed and smiled, turning away from her.

"Ah, I get it, you're a fan, ain't ya?" He turned back toward her, "Look, you don't wanna hang around me. As much as it may seem like I'm the guy who's gonna save the day, you can trust me, I'm not. I don't give a damn what happens to you, I'm not here to save you, and I didn't even notice you were around till ya spoke up. Saving you back there was a happy accident babe, I think you should take the hint and just leave this place, okay? It's not safe and it ain't gonna be safe for a real long while."

She scowled at him but felt deflated and low.

He saw the look on her face and kicked himself for feeling the least bit bad. He didn't stick around to entertain this stupidity any longer, and the man marched off towards the giant structure that had emerged in the distance. She had only just now noticed the giant thing and came to feel anger for his rejection. Elizabeth couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. Her eyes darted around and wondered exactly where the polarizing stare was coming from.

What was that shadow? It was moving across the sky, not too far up. It swayed across the gap between buildings and rested down upon a ledge.

A pale face peered out from the moving shadow and made her blood ran cold. The man before her appeared oblivious, walking on still away from her.

Closer it drew . . .

"Look out!" She screamed.

And the man gazed back to notice just in time Death riding towards him a cloud of darkness within the air, swinging away its blue-flame scythe dipped in the fires of hell. With a ghostly wail, it swung at his mid-section and so the man, wide-eyed, leapt up through the air, his legs leaving the ground behind. Cartwheeling in the air, his head barely missed the blade, the edge of it severing two threads from the ends of his bangs. He landed and took note of the creature's silent approach. He wouldn't have known otherwise had she not screamed.

It staggered forth, its size three times that of a man, a true vanguard of Hell's wrath.

He drew his blade lightning-quick and zoomed forward, his steel meeting the brand head on. The collision of rage with disquieted longing for release brought about a horrible kerrang that destroyed windows of cars still intact and they traded further blows, battling one another with flips and kicks and slashes and stabs; not a one seeming to deal lasting damage. With a swiping of the blades, the creature flew back and landed off yonder staring upon his pale flesh.

Dante suddenly appeared to teleport to its location abruptly and struck hard with a vertical swing.

The demon however, just barely managed to stop it, bringing the scythe's stalk up to perform a block. He continuously applied pressure against it. Though he was tall, the monster was taller. Parting ways with a bang, the unearthly huntsman blasted the wicked spirit in the cheek at pointblank range with a bullet from Ivory, and it staggered back as he flipped rearward and landed several feet away. They had parted once more.

They both assumed battle stances and prepared for a real fight.

Dante lunged forward and swung his blade sideways at his eerie opponent. The sword clamored against an opposing attack from its blue-lit scythe opposite the steel. The cloaked demon quickly grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards itself, past its head quickly, smashing him into the ground then seizing Dante around his waste. Bringing him right up to it's face, it screeched a tortured howl that made his ears bleed.

"Aaah!" he yelled.

He lurched back and brought his knee forward into its chin. A loud crunch rattled out.

The man flipped backwards carried by momentum and landed still. His grim enemy rambled away.

Both grimaced at their injuries but pressed forward. He attempted another stinger, forging his blade forward, but the demon leaped over him through the air, itself mocking gravity, and it landed upon an automobile. He thought on his feet quickly, aiming and shooting the gas tank beneath it. An eruption of charred metal and flames materialized engulfing the creature in shrapnel and hatred. Direct hit. Unsatisfied, it flew out of the explosion at Dante, wildly dicing through the air its head-taker. The hunter quickly rolled back away from this monstrosity and dashed towards the face of a brick building. The inescapable frenzy came rushing after him, cutting through air unchallenged.

He suddenly defied gravity, sprinting up the side of the wall. When he reached twelve feet high, he pushed off, twirling through the air, landing numerous feet abroad.

The dark fiend battered into the bricks. It broke through into the empty building, but quickly returned, leaping from the improvised entryway.

"Tricky dicky," he quipped.

The man immediately charged forth toward it, his eyes running ruby with choler. It bolted toward him as well, hovering off the ground, and flew upwards as the man raced ahead and leapt up to the sky to meet it. They clashed and matched each other with an opposing set of strikes, countless sword strikes ably canceling out the swings of the scythe. The night sky was lit only by an incomparably bright full moon, cascading natural luminescence all around the city.

Light also emanated from the buildings, battling for supremacy against the stellar deity in the sky.

This created a strange blue hue that seemed to blot out the stars completely, leaving only the endless dark void, suffocating the atmosphere.

He attacked with a downward blow, though it was parried with an unexpected tactic, the reaper swirled in spiral and launched the scythe into a vortex of slices. Forced back, the hunter's feet barely touched the ground for a fraction of a second before he vaulted off and attacked again with a fast-paced billow of swings in what could only be described as a hate-filled aerial rave. Numerous flecks of preternatural blood sprayed across the street, taken from its body, landing beneath them as he cut and cut.

It returned back to the ground, and yet, kept moving, darting off to the left as Dante carried on swinging paralleled in motion. The two, remaining in time with one another, glided over the blood-stained streets towards the local strip club, _Love Planet. _The blitzkrieg between them intensified, Dante moving faster and faster in a bid to outpace the monster with speed alone. The demon of frosting hell brought down its scythe and faced the blade away for an upward storm of lacerations. He blocked it by bringing the hilt close to him into a guard.

Although it almost knocked the blade from his hand, he managed to hold on and resisted the opposing pressure, with Death's weapon scraping against the flat of the sword instead.

Brilliant sparks danced by as both armaments clashed over and over. Dante ground his feet against the blacktop, and he came to a stop.

With a dug in rage, he rammed Rebellion back towards its fast-approaching torso, and the blade cleaved into the creature's pale side, from which poured glowing blood. The blade tore until it carried the beast itself, and like a baseball bat, he swung off the heels of his feet like a professional player. Flung back off its feet, it howled and hurtled into the side of a jacked-up Ford. Heavy metal contorted as it collided and crumpled, the beast crawling to stand once more, dazed and confused. With all the class of a 1950s teamster, he put away the broadsword of his lineage and opened fire with both his personal guns, spiteful bullets littering the vanguard over and over again till it collapsed forward from a hundred shots.

Blue blood spilling from its mouth, it wheezed and looked up to see his boot crashing into its face.

"Hyaah!" He bellowed, and the skeletal entity's head bashed into the dented car door behind it.

The Rebellion came crashing down onto its shoulders and stung through its devil-flesh, and once more it howled at the Devil-Hunter, twisting around its scythe at the man. Like art, he bent over backwards, staying afloat somehow, the blade a mere inch away from his chin and it passed him by. Rebellion came again, slashed at its weakened belly where the weapon re-entered the same divot it earlier made. Once more the beast howled, and the Hunter pulled on his weapon. The blade tore out from its gut and ripped open its flesh more severely, and it toppled again. Forward onto its knees it fell.

Stumbling, it raised its only means of defense up toward him to block his incoming strikes.

Dante slashed horizontally twice against the demon's blue executioner, breaking the iron grip of its meathooks. Reversing his grip of the brand, he brought it forth into an inverted slash technique. Slicing the severity at its throat, it cut all the way into its neck, partially decapitating the frenzied beast, the momentum of which forced it back off its solid stance and onto its curved spine. The beast crashed into the floor, cracking the ground with little grace. It flattened under the might of Dante's right boot crushing into its torn stomach. The slayer's weight sent plasmatic paint onto the cars beside him, vividly clashing against their faded color schemes.

It convulsed and spewed glowing, flaccid blood clots from its mouth, all of them blue.

He wrenched the sword free of the thing's neck and, maintaining his transposed grip, pointing the tip of his blade at the wounded throat and prepared to drive the weapon fully through.

Having grown weary of constantly fighting this powerful vanguard, he spat in its withered face.

The demon responded with a flick of the wrist, batting the Rebellion away as it merged with the ground and faded away from him. Staggering back, he looked around for the creature as a blackness formed within the surface of a nearby wall, and within one moment it emerged into the night once more, swinging its unholy blade at him. Dante swung around rightward. Rebellion swiped at the scythe's edge, Ebony drawn with his left hand, and it shouted a charged shell at the creature's skull. It planted itself square into its forehead and the demon ceased movement, head cracked backwards.

With a natural swing to the left, Dante swung the flat of the blade as though it were a baseball bat once more.

Struck at the core of its back, the wounded creature took off sailing.

He flung the blade out and the blood coating it snapped off clean. Resting the weapon on his back, he casually slid it back into his holster.

From behind him, he heard her whimper.

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**To see his violence at play was to lose common sense, and so she had, the man moving as though the laws of physics held no sway over his physical form**

**And she stood holding herself, shoulders clasped begging for reason in this senseless modern age, hoping and praying that it was gone and so was he**

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She remained with her eyes closed, trying to stop the tears from falling. When she thought that all reason had died, two large hands grabbed her shoulders softly.

The motion made her scream, she jolted back to see Dante.

This time though he was silent, for once his expression was blank with only a hint of remorse.

"Easy there, babe. I don't bite."

"S-Stay back." She stuttered, "Just stay back, stay away."

"You don't understand what you've seen, right?" Dante replied, and she nodded, he explained to her, "You aren't gonna, not for a long, long time. These are bad guys okay, that's all you need to know about 'em. I told ya before you wouldn't want to stick with me, that's why. I'm goin' towards that thing where more are gonna be, you come with and that's it for you, you're dead. There's no respawns."

She sniffled and glared at him longing to understand.

"I think it may be a good idea for you to hide." He said, and she nodded at him.

That was all she could do at the moment, it was all too shocking to comprehend.

"Just relax, 'kay? Come with me." And he led her away to a place where she might live to see another day.

He found an apartment complex inside which were comfortable and abandoned furnishings. He was sorry to see it this way, but it was a matter of survival and those that had once lived inside were most definitely not alive. He placed her within and sat her down on the bed, kneeling till they were eye-level. She dared not look into his freezing eyes till he forced her to, then and only then did she realize they were not hostile, they were gentle, warm, kind. He assured her silently that if she waited here till he had fixed whatever had gone wrong, she would be safe, and for the time being, she believed this.

Strange words coming out of such a strange man.

She can no longer tell . . .

"Okay." She simply answered back.

To be sure, he took from his pocket a thing of holy invention, a small amount of consecrated water, and he doused the line of the doorway with it.

He turned to her as he left and simply nodded back to her.

Dante trekked out into the streets and saw the chaos of his brother's making. It would stop.

Dante half-heartedly chuckled, "Well, well, well . . . It's been a whole year since we last met, where does the time go?" He looked upon the sky, upon the edge of the dark tower that had risen.

From behind him, he heard a noise, a rattling can. It was the vanguard.

Drawing Ivory, he threatened to shoot, but it only fled from him, bouncing from roof corner to roof corner. He scoffed and holstered his forearm.

"Heh . . . No doubt you planned some fun for me, right Vergil?!" He screamed.

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**Thanks for reading**

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**This story was a request from an anonymous user.**

**Of course, this is part one of a series of one-shots.**

**Thank you Angel wolf.**


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